Here's 17 right-on tweets about Trump's COVID-19 diagnosis and hospitalization, including his attempt to do a Mussolini impression from a White House balcony after being released from the hospital. Sure, I could try to be as informed and witty as these people I follow on Twitter, but why try? Easier to simply share screenshots of their tweets.
I have a tough time figuring out who is more irresponsible:
(1) The Salem Awakening organizers who held a Christian event in Riverfront Park attended by hundreds of people in violation of Governor Brown's order limiting outdoor gatherings to no more than a hundred individuals.
(2) The attendees, most of whom weren't wearing masks and failed to engage in required physical distancing.
(3) Officials with the City of Salem who have been allowing Salem Awakening to use the park without a permit for most of the summer, and who did nothing to control last Thursday's super-spreader Covid event.
I'm going to go with a three-way tie. Salem Awakening, the attendees, and city officials all deserve a Who Gives a Shit About Life? award, given that they all displayed an astounding degree of uncaring about reducing the spread of the deadly Covid-19 virus.
On a positive note, today the Statesman Journal has a story by Whitney Woodworth about this, "COVID-19 'super spreader'? Concert, religious gatherings at Riverfront Park draw concern." To be clear, the Let Us Worship concert also was a religious gathering. Here's excerpts from the story.
Hundreds of people gathered at Riverfront Park on Thursday for a concert and religious celebration with little social distancing at times and few attendees wearing masks.
There is concern the concert could become a "super-spreader" event, especially as Marion County continues to have one of the highest rates of COVID-19 cases in the state.
Despite outdoor gatherings being limited during Phase 2 of reopening and masks being required outdoors if social distancing isn't possible, hundreds of people met at Riverfront Park for the Let Us Worship.
City officials said they were aware of the event but gave no answer on what enforcement would be taken to stop violations of the governor's orders.
...Salem Awakening continued to meet at Riverfront Park and has said they will continue to do so until Labor Day. Their Facebook page promoted and included photos of the Let Us Worship concert on Thursday.
After Labor Day, organizers said they plan to begin meeting outside Planned Parenthood in Salem regularly for a "worship service at the gates of Hell."
According to their social page, Salem Awakening organizers also helped organize Thursday's Let Us Worship concert.
Well, that mention of Planned Parenthood shows some astounding hypocrisy.
If Salem Awakening really cared about preserving life, they wouldn't be sponsoring a Let Us Worship concert that put both attendees and their friends/families at considerable risk of being infected with the Covid virus.
Here's a short video someone sent me of what I assume is last Thursday's event. I uploaded it to You Tube because it deserves to be shared.
Whew. I can relax.
A few days ago I read that Trump was vowing to act more presidential now that the election is less than 100 days away. Since I desperately want him to lose, I was worried that Trump was going to at least sound as if he valued the advice of public health experts when it comes to combatting the COVID crisis, even if he continued to act otherwise.
I should have known that Trump was incapable of pretending to be a science-loving leader of our nation, since that goes against his compulsion to attempt to lie his way out of every problem, including a pandemic that has taken 150,000 American lives.
(Remember when Trump said that at most, COVID would cause 60,000 deaths, and he hoped the final toll would be lower. I sure do.)
Today Trump doubled down on his support of a group that, among other bizarre ideas, is pushing the discredited claim that hydroxychloroquine is a valid way of preventing or treating a COVID-19 infection. Here's an excerpt from a New York Times story.
In a video posted Monday online, a group of people calling themselves “America’s Frontline Doctors” and wearing white medical coats spoke against the backdrop of the Supreme Court in Washington, sharing misleading claims about the virus, including that hydroxychloroquine was an effective coronavirus treatment and that masks did not slow the spread of the virus.
The video did not appear to be anything special. But within six hours, President Trump and his son Donald Trump Jr. had tweeted versions of it, and the right-wing news site Breitbart had shared it.
It went viral, shared largely through Facebook groups dedicated to anti-vaccination movements and conspiracy theories such as QAnon, racking up tens of millions of views. Multiple versions of the video were uploaded to YouTube, and links were shared through Twitter.
Facebook, YouTube and Twitter worked feverishly to remove it, but by the time they had, the video had already become the latest example of misinformation about the virus that has spread widely.
Today Trump had only good things to say about the woman shown speaking in the photo above, Dr. Stella Immanuel. A Daily Beast story says about her:
But she has refused to provide proof of her claim that she’s cured hundreds of COVID-19 patients with hydroxychloroquine.
That didn’t chasten Trump, however, who praised Immanuel and her fellow Frontline Doctors at a Tuesday afternoon press conference. “I can tell you this, she was on air along with many other doctors,” he said.
“They were big fans of hydroxychloroquine and I thought she was very impressive in the sense that from where she came, I don't know which country she comes from, but she said that she's had tremendous success with hundreds of different patients, and I thought her voice was an important voice, but I know nothing about her.”
Well, the president of the United States, who hopefully soon will be Joe Biden, had better do their homework before standing in front of cameras and telling people that a doctor "was an important voice" about dealing with the COVID crisis.
Here's some of the crazy stuff Stella Immanuel believes, according to David Von Drehle's Washington Post opinion piece, "Americans are suffering. Trump offers them a doctor who warns of sex with demons."
I've got no interest in sharing a video of Stella Immanuel, but I'm pleased to present a video of CNN's Anderson Cooper debunking Immanuel's and Trump's weird COVID notions.
The title of this blog post won't go down in the annals of provocative headline writing, for sure. But it's accurate. I toyed with other titles, like "If you're too wired to sleep, read this" or "Here's something more interesting that watching paint dry... barely."
Still, I hate to let a good PDF file go to waste, so here's a list someone sent me of the businesses in Salem that got PPP (Paycheck Protection Program) money from the federal government. The highlighted names of businesses in the list are ones that this person felt deserved attention.
One thing that struck me was how many businesses got PPP money. This is good, by and large, though there is reason to believe that much of the $517 billion handed out by the PPP program wasn't wisely spent. Here's how a recent Slate story, "The Paycheck Protection Program was a flop," starts out.
Since this spring, the federal government has handed out $517 billion through the Paycheck Protection Program, the main lifeline that Congress threw to small and midsize businesses to help them survive the coronavirus crisis. It’s a weighty amount of money, almost two-thirds of what Washington spent on the entire stimulus package it passed in 2009 to combat the Great Recession.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to have bought us very much.
Hastily crafted as the economy began to collapse earlier this year, PPP was designed to keep businesses alive and Americans attached to their jobs while the country shut down to try and squelch the pandemic. It offers employers with 500 or fewer workers low-interest loans to cover their operating expenses, which the government will forgive if they avoid layoffs. (Somewhat larger companies can qualify if they are in the hospitality industry or meet the government’s previously established small-business size standards.) For most borrowers, it’s essentially free money that they can use to pay their bills and their staff.
This week, a team of economists led by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s David Autor released the most detailed evaluation yet of the program’s results—and their conclusions were not flattering. The researchers found that PPP only boosted overall employment among eligible businesses by between 2 to 4.5 percent and likely saved about 2.31 million jobs, at the cost of $224,000 each.
To put those numbers in perspective, consider that there were 31.8 million Americans on the unemployment rolls at the start of this month, and that 2.4 million people filed for benefits last week alone. The country appears to have spent a half-trillion dollars and put just a small dent in joblessness. What’s more, we only paid for a temporary fix. PPP only provided loans equal to about 10 weeks of payroll expenses; now that the money is running out, some businesses appear ready to start laying off workers again.
Another thing that caught my eye was that getting free money, basically, is popular across the entire ideological spectrum. Salem businesses run by conservatives got lots of PPP money. So did businesses run by progressives. Many churches got PPP money. So did many health care providers.
It's difficult to determine which businesses were most deserving of getting the PPP money without knowing their unique circumstances.
For example, D&O Garbage got money. They do a fine job picking up our trash and recycling, but I wonder how much the pandemic affected their business. Maybe some out-of-work people decided they'd take their trash to the dump themselves. Hard to tell. And I'm sure the Illahe Hills Country Club suffered during stay-at-home orders. However, seeing them on the list was a bit of a surprise.
When it comes to the number of jobs reportedly retained via a PPP grant, the Galt Foundation led with 500 jobs. Their focus is on creating employment opportunities for people with disabilities, so it's hard to quibble with them getting PPP money. Likewise for Garten Services, which claimed 335 jobs retained.
Capitol Racquet Sports, a.k.a. Courthouse Athletic Clubs, said 368 jobs were retained. Since athletic clubs have been hard hit by the pandemic, this seems believable.
The Seaman Restaurant Corporation claimed 364 jobs were retained. It's unclear what restaurants they operate in the Salem area. A Dun & Bradstreet corporate profile says "Seaman Restaurant Corporation has 250 total employees across all of its locations." Hmmmm. The claim of 364 jobs retained would deserve a closer look if anyone was looking into this, but almost certainly nobody will.
Here's another excerpt from the Slate story.
Unless you happen to be a deficit fanatic, there are much worse tragedies than the government frittering away a bit of cash in an attempt to shore up an economy in crisis. The country isn’t facing a fiscal crisis. The feds can still borrow for cheap. It’s OK if a few businesses receive aid they don’t absolutely need, if it also means getting help to those in peril.
What’s most frustrating about PPP is that it wasted money yet still failed to reach all of the mom and pop shops that needed assistance. Its complicated rules, meant to ensure that firms spend most of their loan proceeds paying workers, make it a poor fit for some businesses, especially ones that are entirely shut down and don’t want to recall their staff.
According to the Census Bureau, a quarter of small businesses never even applied for the program, and as of now, $130 billion of PPP’s total funding still remains untouched, even as many firms are shuttering permanently across the country.
Congress could have justifiably spent even more money to build a simpler program providing a backstop to all businesses. Or it could have designed something narrower targeting businesses whose revenues plummeted during the crisis. Instead, it built something that gave a lot of money to the businesses that needed it least while hanging some that needed it most out to dry.
What a difference between Salem and Eugene when it comes to making sure that city parks are available, safe, and welcoming to all in an equitable fashion in these COVID-19 days.
The City of Salem is operating its parks quite differently from Eugene, with no reservation permit system at all anymore. This allows Salem Awakening 2020, a religious group, to continue appropriating the Riverfront Park amphitheater every evening from 6 to 8 pm for many weeks or months, using a sound system and also, I’ve heard, city electricity.
UPDATE: Councilor Leung forwarded me a message from a city employee saying Salem Awakening isn't using city electricity. OK, I'll accept that. I just wonder how batteries could power large speakers and electrified musical instruments. See:
Councilor Leung, while we are no longer taking reservations for park spaces, we are allowing drop in use of our park facilities, which could be considered first come first serve.
Without a reservation process in place I realize that some conflicts could occur between groups and hopefully everyone will remain civil and courteous as we work through this pandemic together.
The church group does not have access to our electrical, apparently they are using battery power to amplify the program. No city assets are being used per Public Works.
Thanks Mike Niblock
Of course, this prevents anyone else from using the amphitheater from 6 to 8 pm unless they want to argue with Salem Awakening about who got there first. After the permit for Salem Awakening was revoked, and the religious group vowed to keep on meeting in the park, the City of Salem did away with permits entirely.
This is unfair to everyone in Salem who wants to schedule a group meeting in a park. If you agree, tell the City Manager (Steve Powers) and the City Council how you feel about this:
By contrast, this morning I learned from a Eugene Parks and Open Spaces Division employee about how that city, which is about the same size as Salem, is handling park reservation permits. I've boldfaced an especially pertinent requirement. In Eugene:
This "who cares?" attitude toward COVID is occurring while Oregon just registered the highest daily infection count ever, 437 new cases. That Statesman Journal story also reports:
Due to the increasing number of new COVID-19 cases in the region, the city of Salem will close the recently reopened in-person services at city hall starting Friday.
The change effectively closes the limited services, including in-person bill payment, parks reservations and development permit service center, that the city began offering on July 6.
City officials said the decision to close in-person services was made after receiving additional guidance from public health agencies about limiting indoor gatherings to no more than ten people.
The first COVID cases in Oregon were reported on March 2. It's now July 16. So City officials have had over four a half months to prepare their operations for life during a pandemic.
Yet even with all that time available, now they aren't able to do something as simple as having people who want to reserve a park for a group activity, and pay for the reservation, do this online.
Gosh, I recently saw an ad in the free West Salem Newspaper from a realtor who is able to have a prospective house buyer look at a property, make an offer on it, transact all of the purchase details, and receive the closing documents -- all without any person-to-person contact.
Meanwhile, Salem city officials have given up on reservations and are allowing a free-for-all when it comes to groups using city parks.
It may well be that at some point a group other than Salem Awakening is going to want to use the Riverfront Park amphitheater during the same time as the religious group has taken it over without a permit. Not just once, but day after day, week upon week, until September 8, I've heard.
They probably think Jesus will protect their nightly takeover of the amphitheater. They sure seem to think that Jesus is protecting them from COVID, given the fervent laying on of hands a few days ago.
Quite a few people have shared their concern about the hands-off attitude City Manager Steve Powers and other city officials are displaying about the permit-free takeover of the Riverfront Park amphitheater by Salem Awakening. I've seen creative suggestions for what could happen at the amphitheater during, say, a few hours before and after the 6 pm start time of the religious event.
Like a heavy metal concert, recorded or otherwise. Even more appealing, a Satanic Temple event. (Sadly, there is no longer a chapter in Oregon.)
Additional update: Councilor Leung also shared this July 10 message from City Manager Steve Powers. It confirms my view that the City of Salem basically has thrown up its hands and decided not to try to make groups that use city parks without a permit conform to COVID public health guidelines and requirements. Very disappointing.
City staff are adjusting to Oregon Health Authority and State of Oregon guidance and requirements regarding social distancing, mask, and contact tracing. At the same time, we are responding to Salem residents and others who are unhappy with specific events and the inconsistency between street uses and park uses.
We do not have clear guidance from OHA or the State for use of streets.
We continue to presume that demonstrations will occur regardless of whether the City issues a permit or closes a street.
Restaurants and retail have guidance and requirements for operating safely – indoors or out of doors.
For parks and other City facilities, we are not issuing permits or reservations. We are evaluating our staff availability. At this time, we are not staffed to ensure the groups can meet public health requirements. When the City charges someone to reserve a park facility, the state reopening guidelines place responsibility on the City for monitoring for social distancing, mask use, and contact tracing.
We have refunded the reservation for the church group that had reserved the Riverfront Park amphitheater every night through Labor Day (73 dates). We are also going to refund the permit for a yoga group that had another three days remaining on their reservation. We are encouraging groups to use park facilities on a drop-in basis.
Managing public goals (right to assemble, protecting public health, recreation) without conflict is becoming increasingly difficult.
Steve Powers
City Manager
City of Salem
Ever since he was elected president of the United States, I've been a vociferous critic of Donald Trump. But now I realize how wrong I've been.
A recent statement by Trump points to a solution to not only the COVID-19 crisis, but every conceivable problem that afflicts our planet.
Behold the genius of Trump the Almighty:
I bow down before the glory of this single marvelous sentence which, in eight carefully crafted words, cuts through the thicket of confusion that has prevented humanity from dealing with so many issues that have bedeviled people for millennia.
Trump, though, did expand upon this unsurpassed wisdom in a tweet.
Thank you, President Trump. We now know that not only would there be very few coronavirus cases if testing for COVID-19 infections ceased, also...
Breast cancer would be a thing of the past if women stopped having mammograms.
Global warming would disappear if greenhouse gas levels weren't measured.
Deaths would shrink to almost zero if obituaries weren't published.
Fevers would stop bothering people if thermometers were banned.
Obesity would be eliminated if there were no scales.
Wrinkles would cease to worry older people if all mirrors were shattered.
Bad news would vanish if journalists found other professions.
Student achievement would skyrocket if tests stopped being used.
Crimes would be negligible if FBI statistics weren't reported.
Of course, I have merely scratched the surface of the marvelous improvements to human life if Trump's genius becomes more widely recognized, as it should be.
My profound hope is that after January 2021 Donald Trump will be relieved of his duties as President, thereby freeing up his time to pursue the many avenues of improvement that build upon his groundbreaking insight that if no attempt is made to recognize a problem, the problem ceases to exist.
Saturday's Statesman Journal featured stories about a couple of spectacularly dumb local people. It took me a while to decide who deserves the "dumb" award in this blog post, and who the "dumber," but I'm going with this:
Dumb -- whoever spray painted two marble sculptures in front of the state Capitol building during the first weekend of Black Lives Matter protests.
Dumber -- Marion County commissioner Sam Brentano, for being so irritated at Governor Brown's pausing of county reopening plans due to a spike in coronavirus cases in Oregon.
Sure, it can be argued that these dumb and dumber awards should be switched, and I could go along with that argument, because each of these individuals engaged in some spectacularly misinformed behavior.
Looking at the spray painter first, who so far hasn't been identified, I wish I could share an online link to this Statesman Journal story. But after two days it hasn't appeared on the newspaper's web site, for some baffling reason.
Anyway, here's a photo of the front page of the print edition.
This is how the story by Capi Lynn starts out.
A pair of massive marble sculptures stand sentinel in front of the Oregon State Capitol. Their heroic figures, carved deep into the history of our state, flank the majestic granite steps leading to the main entrance, acting as both guards and greeters.
But their vulnerability was exposed during the first weekend of protests.
Vandals defaced the 81-year-old sculptures by spray-painting profanity-laced messages on their stone surfaces. Their pedestals are made of granite.
A mason restoration company from Tigard has been working all week to remove the paint with little success, and the sculptures remain covered with tarps.
"It's not working very good because we didn't get on it soon enough," Joe Bryson of Pioneer Waterproofing Co. said Friday. "The longer it sits on there, the harder it is to get off. We keep trying, but I don't know if it will ever come off."
The vandalism occurred between 10 p.m. Saturday, May 30, and 12:30 a.m. Sunday, May 31, the first weekend crowds gathered at the Capitol protest [against] police brutality and the death of George Floyd.
l have no idea how anyone could think that spray-painting graffiti on the sculptures helps in any way to further the Black Lives Matter movement. Actually, it hurts the movement, by distracting attention from the many positive aspects of the protests to this senseless act of vandalism.
Hopefully the vandals will be identified and punished. The story ends with: "If you have information about the incident, contact Trooper Greg Williams at the Capitol Mall Area Command, 503-986-1122."
Now, as dumb as the spray-painting was, it didn't cause physical harm to any people, just the statues. So Commissioner Sam Brentano gets the dumber award because another front-page story, "Marion, Polk, wait for more reopening," shows how clueless Brentano is about the danger reopening too quickly poses to Oregonians.
Here's excerpts from the story by Claire Withycombe.
Bars and restaurants in Marion and Polk counties will still be closing by 10 p.m., and residents still can't go bowling or to a movie theater, for at least one more week due to a recent jump in cases of COVID-19.
Nearly all of Oregon's counties have been approved by the governor's office to "reopen" for some public activities after months of what was practically a lockdown to slow the spread of the new coronavirus.
Brown's office has laid out a plan that allows each county to apply to reopen in three phases.
Marion and Polk counties are currently in the first phase, which allows limited reopening of restaurants and bars and gatherings of up to 25 people. You can see what else you can do during the first phase on the governor's website.
But no county will be permitted to open up any further for another week at least, Brown announced Thursday. That means Marion and Polk counties' efforts to move into the second phase won't be approved for at least another week.
...On Thursday, the Oregon Health Authority reported 178 new cases, the most in a single day since the pandemic started. On Friday, another 142 cases were announced.
...Local county commissioners expressed disappointment after Brown's decision.
"We're not going to be able to go like this forever," said Marion County Commissioner Sam Brentano, reached by phone Friday morning. "All government should be doing is alerting when there's a problem and then let people make their own choices to protect themselves."
Brentano said he was concerned by the uptick in cases in Marion County, which reported 29 new cases Friday.
"Right now is a dangerous time, and that part's right," Brentano said. "But I don't feel I want to continue leaving authority to make decisions to live or operate up to the state."
Spoken like the true science-denier that you are, Commissioner Brentano. He has been an outspoken opponent of efforts to reduce greenhouse gas pollution, since Brentano doesn't believe that humans are causing the global warming that is having increasingly disastrous consequences.
So it isn't surprising that just as Brentano wants people and corporations to be able to spew as many carbon emissions as they want, he also wants to allow individuals and businesses to be able to spread the coronavirus in any way they want.
Fortunately, Brentano isn't in charge of Oregon. Governor Kate Brown is. And she is relying on advice from our state's public health experts as she makes decisions about how to re-open Oregon safely, decisions that the Oregon Supreme Court recently has ruled are totally legal.
UPDATE: Just came across this apt passage in a Texas Monthly story that I read vis Apple News.
A version of “personal responsibility” that looks like “I’ll take responsibility for my risk, and you take responsibility for your risk,” though, neglects the reality of a pandemic. Responsibility may be personal—but risk is communal. Everyone can both get sick with the virus and pass it on to someone else.
A person who gets infected while packed into an overcrowded bar can pass the disease to a supermarket cashier who is otherwise steadfastly avoiding high-risk situations. A healthy young person whose sense of personal responsibility leaves him comfortable spending a leisurely evening in a bustling restaurant can infect a roommate who works in a nursing home.
Frustrating. Not good. Irritating.
There's a lot of words I could use to describe my feeling about Marion and Polk being the only counties in Oregon whose applications to start reopening were rejected by Governor Brown and the Oregon Health Authority.
Of Oregon's 36 counties, 31 were given the OK to reopen. Three haven't applied yet (Multnomah, Clackamas, Washington). And two, Marion and Polk, have the dubious distinction of not passing the re-opening criteria, apparently mostly because of continued high numbers of new COVID-19 cases.
On the sort-of bright side, today's OHA Coronavirus Update said, "The applications for Marion and Polk counties were not approved, and those counties will be monitored for seven days to see if conditions in those counties have improved." But the update also showed that, once again, Marion County had the highest number of new cases in Oregon.
Oregon Health Authority reported 67 new confirmed cases and no new presumptive cases of COVID-19 as of 8 a.m. today, bringing the state total to 3,479. The new confirmed cases reported today are in the following counties: Deschutes (2), Linn (2), Malheur (1), Marion (33), Multnomah (19), Polk (1), Umatilla (2), Washington (2), Yamhill (5).
Here's a map that tells the reopening tale, courtesy of the Oregon Health Authority.
So how is it that Marion County, along with our neighbor Polk County, is going to continue being shutdown tomorrow, while all of the uncolored counties in the map have been approved for a Phase 1 reopening? Which, according to a State of Oregon summary, consists of:
First reopening stage, allowed in specific counties that qualify. Includes limited reopening of restaurants and bars, personal services, gyms, and malls. Gatherings of up to 25 people allowed for recreational, social, cultural, civic or faith events – with physical distancing requirements.
When I first heard today that Marion County's reopen application had been turned down, my snap reaction was to blame the three Republican county commissioners.
After all, one of them, Sam Brentano, is a notorious global warming denier. So it was easy for me to envision he and the other two commissioners ignoring public health scientists, being big on Trump-style "let's get the economy open again and not worry much about whether this causes more deaths and disease."
There could be some truth to this. The Marion County Health Department has been notably silent on our local coronavirus crisis. I'm a news junkie and haven't seen any meaningful public utterances about the unusually high number of COVID-19 cases here.
In fact, I've read news stories where staff from the Health Department declined to comment on the high rate of infections in Marion County. That got me to thinking that department employees were being stifled by the County Commissioners in the same way Trump has been preventing federal scientists from releasing coronavirus guidelines and other information.
But an excellent Salem Reporter story by Rachel Alexander, Saphara Harrell and Jake Thomas caught my eye a little while ago. The timing was great to publish today's "WATCHDOG: In Marion County, high concentrations of coronavirus blamed on inequality of care."
Along with other news outlets, Salem Reporter is making coronavirus-related stories free to everybody. So you should be able to read the link above without a subscription -- which i highly recommend that you do, as it is by far the best analysis I've seen of the situation in Marion County.
It's a detailed, nuanced, well-researched story.
Notwithstanding the headline citing inequality of care as the culprit in Marion County, the story shows that there's plenty of blame to go around. Read it to get the full picture.
Here's my summary of the blamees, with excerpts from the Salem Reporter piece -- which focuses on the heavily Latinx Woodburn area that has by far the most coronavirus cases in Marion County.
Marion County Health Department
Days passed before the Marion County Health Department approached the groups to ask their help to slow the rapidly escalating number of infected individuals."
"But an investigation by Salem Reporter found that state and Marion County health officials were slow to get timely, accurate information about COVID-19 to agricultural workers and non-English speaking residents in the north county.
Constrained by limited testing capacity, limited staffing and sometimes days-long delays in getting results back, health officials reacted as new cases were reported, but did little to proactively ensure some of the county’s most vulnerable residents were armed with information to protect themselves and their families.
Inequality/Inequity
Community leaders and state health officials said Marion County’s outbreak is exposing longstanding inequities for Latinos and non-English speaking residents who are more likely employed in agriculture, manufacturing and other fields where work has continued despite the pandemic.
The leaders described as slow or inadequate the outreach early on that could have helped people still working in essential jobs better protect themselves and their families.
“The gaps that are already in our community, the gaps that have already been there between our Latinx community and our county, they’ve been magnified in a really big way,” said Lopez, the PCUN director.
Bad business practices
Employers in grocery stores, agriculture, manufacturing and construction weren’t required to follow all of the state’s guidelines about social distancing at work, though they still had an obligation to protect employees from COVID-19 under general workplace safety rules, according to Oregon OSHA spokesman Aaron Colvin.
Staying far apart from other workers is possible in some field jobs, but Lopez said PCUN received reports from workers that they were working “shoulder to shoulder” in farms and food processing plants and didn’t have hand washing stations or sanitizing supplies. PCUN encouraged people to file complaints with state agencies, she said.
Workers have filed 29 complaints with Oregon OSHA alleging Woodburn businesses failed to follow social distancing guidelines or provide protective equipment. Six relate to grocery stores and three to nursery and meat packing businesses. Most are still being investigated.
Culture
Close contact at work wasn’t the only concern. Workers often shared van rides to jobs, providing another way for the virus to spread. Many live in large households, making it easier for the virus to spread to a larger group if a working adult unwittingly brings home the disease.
Large households have been a common factor for people seeking COVID-19 testing at Woodburn’s Salud Medical Center.
“Family is the center. You may be interdependent on other portions of your family. Maybe your cousin is your babysitter. Maybe your grandparents live with you or your parents,” said Lori Kelley, director of quality for Yakima Valley Farmworkers Clinic, which operates Salud.
Health care access
Access to health care also plays a role, according to Latino health providers and community leaders. State data shows that Latinos are less likely to have health insurance, meaning it’s more difficult to get testing.
That means those testing positive in official counts likely reflect a small portion of the true number with COVID-19. Kelley said the percentage of patients testing positive at Salud has been higher than at Yakima Valley’s other Marion County clinics, suggesting those coming in are more sick.
Lack of testing
Lopez said she’s heard reports of Latinos with COVID-19 symptoms turned away from testing sites in the county, sometimes because they didn’t have insurance.
Without widespread testing, it’s more likely for people with no or very mild symptoms to spread the virus, especially if they’re still going to work. Public health workers are also challenged to identify where the virus is spreading when they can’t track all those who are infected, something that can revealed by extensive testing.
Inadequate information
Lopez said government health authorities should have worked with rural radio stations, Spanish language media or other similar outlets. Even when social distancing guidelines did get out, she said they often failed to address the realities of daily life for people who carpool to work or live in large households with a single bathroom.
“What I mostly heard was confusion from our Latinx community, especially our elders, saying ‘Hey, am I going to get arrested if I go out to work?’” Lopez said.
In case you're wondering why the Salem Reporter story focused so much on the Woodburn area, that's the biggest "hot spot" in Marion County. Here's a chart from the story.
I'm as eager as anyone to have Marion County get back to a semblance of normality in these coronavirus times. i miss my Tai Chi classes. I miss going to the Courthouse Athletic Club. I miss having my hair cut (though I'm looking more like Willy Nelson every day, which can't be a bad thing).
But I'm also an avid reader of the daily Oregon Coronavirus Update that gets emailed to me by the Oregon Health Authority (OHA). Disturbingly often, Marion County has an outsized number of new cases, frequently outpacing Multnomah County which has a much larger population.
According to the most recent OHA data, May 8, Oregon as a whole has had 3,068 confirmed coronavirus cases. Marion County has had 626, 20% of the state total. Yet in 2019 Marion County comprised only 8% of the Oregon population (347,818 out of 4.218 million).
Nonetheless, a few days ago the Salem Reporter ran a story by Saphara Harrell and Rachel Alexander, "With highest COVID-19 rate in the state, Marion County wants to start reopening businesses."
Marion County says it is ready to start lifting restrictions intended to slow the spread of COVID-19. But the county’s plan, released Wednesday, will face its first test when it’s sent to the governor’s office to determine if the area has met key measures needed to reopen.
The proposal by the Marion County Board of Commissioners comes as the county is experiencing the highest rate of the coronavirus infections in the state and lags behind other urban counties in testing.
Marion County hasn’t met many of the state’s requirements for reopening, including adequate testing, adequate contact tracers or a downward trajectory of cases over a 14-day period. But on Wednesday, materials were presented at the board meeting making the case that the county is making progress on key measures.
OK. But progress is one thing. Meeting the state's requirements is a whole other thing. It seems to me that Marion County should be one of the last counties in Oregon to start reopening businesses, churches, and such, not one of the first.
Today I looked over Marion County's application to the state to begin reopening. As the Salem Reporter story says, Marion County isn't meeting some of the criteria that the state says are needed to ensure the safety of people as Governor Brown's Stay Home, Save Lives orders are gradually relaxed.
Notably, the number of new coronavirus cases in Marion County isn't on a two-week downward trend. A chart in the Marion County application shows this.
Two weeks from May 1 was April 17, which is just past the legend on the horizontal axis. I didn't do any sophisticated statistical analysis of that two-week trend, or even an unsophisticated analysis. But it seems obvious that the Marion County application to start reopening on May 15 doesn't demonstrate a two-week downward trend in new coronavirus cases.
Instead, the application says, "There has been a decline of cases from a peak on April 19, 2020." Well, yes. April 19 was the high point so far in new Marion County cases. But cherry-picking one day doesn't make a trend. My eyeballs don't see any sort of overall trend -- just a steady increase in cases with ups and downs in the daily count.
County-level data from the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center confirms that Marion County isn't experiencing a recent downturn in confirmed coronavirus cases. Here's the graph for Marion County. Sure doesn't look like any "bending the curve" is going on in Marion County so far. The last data point is May 7, yesterday.
Here's the graph for Multnomah County, which has the most cases in Oregon. A small bit of bending seems to be occurring.
I readily admit that part of my skepticism about Marion County being ready to start reopening stems from the deeply conservative bent of the three Republican county commissioners. I don't trust that they're committed to using the best science to base reopening plans on. Rather, I strongly suspect that their Trumpian brand of politics is at play.
Namely, wrongly believing that the Marion County economy can start getting back to normal even though the coronavirus crisis hasn't abated. If people are afraid to go to work, shop, eat at a restaurant, visit a gym, or whatever, it doesn't matter if those places are reopened. Probably they will be largely empty until the COVID-19 outbreak is on a decided downturn in Marion County.
Which, right now, it isn't.
Any what's up with the director of the Marion County Public Health Department refusing to comment on the Salem Reporter story? That also seems Trump-like.
The Health Authority this week released case numbers by ZIP code, showing the Gervais and Woodburn areas were leading the state in the number of cases per capita.
Two weeks ago, Katrina Rothenberger, director of the Marion County Public Health Department, said the numbers concerned her that the county was headed in the wrong direction.
On Wednesday, Rothenberger declined an interview through a county spokeswoman.
Facts matter. And it's a fact that a recent DHM Research survey found that 82% of Oregonians support Governor Brown's Stay Home, Save Lives orders. Here's the graphic from the first survey release.
You can read about the findings in this DHM Research PDF file.
Download COVID Survey--Annotated--March 2020
Below is an excerpt from the report about the overwhelming support for stay at home orders, and how this undercuts the claim of right-wing activists that people want Oregon opened up for business as soon as possible.
Oregonians overwhelmingly support the state’s stay at home orders.
82% of Oregonians support the state’s stay at home orders, including a whopping 60% who “strongly” support them. Support is wide and deep.
It cuts across geography, political party, and among those most financially harmed by the lockdowns. By area, the orders are supported by 84% in the Portland metro, 85% in the Willamette Valley and 75% in the rest of the state.
By party, the orders are supported by 95% of Democrats, 72% of Republicans, and 77% of NAV/others. And 83% of those with a job or income loss also support the orders.
Protests advocating against stay at home orders have popped up nationally and in Oregon. This data gives insight into how representative, or not, they are.
The protests have a definite partisan make up, with Republicans and supporters of President Trump clearly visible. And recently, President Trump seemed to be encouraging the protests with a Tweet saying that some states should be “liberated.”
However, the views of the protestors are a distinctly minority view, not only of Oregonians generally, but Republicans specifically.
As noted above, 72% of Republicans support the stay at home order. However, that does leave 28% of Republicans who oppose the orders (as do 20% of NAV/other voters) which is a sufficient number to organize protests.
I've heard that a protest is planned at the Capitol building in early May. After searching Facebook for mentions of "reopen Oregon," I found several groups espousing this goal. But I didn't find any mention of a protest here in Salem.
The Open Oregon Facebook group has many posts about the stay at home orders. Scrolling through them, this image caught my eye.
I found this offensive for several reasons:
(1) My daughter has been furloughed from her job because of the COVID-19 crisis. For 13 years she was the sales manager for a small designer eyewear company in Orange County. They've gotten a federal small business loan, so she might be back in work in May, probably at a reduced salary.
Losing her job disrupted her family immensely. But she supports California's stay at home order because she knows that money is much less important than staying alive. So in no way would she equate a COVID-19 speed bump that slows her career with someone dying from the virus.
(2) I'm 71. My wife is 70. She has asthma. Thus both of us are in a high-risk category because of age, with my wife also having an underlying medical condition that could increase her risk if she got the virus. We have been staying home as much as possible. We wear a mask and gloves when we go grocery shopping or to the pharmacy.
Young people may think that people our age are fine with dying because we've lived 70-some years. News flash: when you get to be 70, that age doesn't seem all that old. Now we want to live to be 80. And 80 year olds want to live to be 90. So long as life is worth living, life is precious.
So please, protesters who want to open up Oregon immediately, exercise your compassion. Think about your parent or grandparent who will be put at greater risk. Imagine how you would feel if you knew that getting the coronavirus from someone not wearing a mask and standing too close to you could cause your death.
Wouldn't it be worth it to save your life by extending the Stay Home, Save Lives orders until public health experts say it is time to relax them? Would you be willing to die so a restaurant or bar could open up a few weeks early?
I doubt it. So don't inflict the risk of premature death onto other people. Forget protesting the stay at home orders. Remember to wash your hands often, wear a mask when you go out in public, and stay six feet away from other people.
Recent Comments